Wednesday, January 19, 2011

A Parental Leave Debate in Britain

Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, announced on Monday that
the government was extending the amount of parental leave that fathers
can take after the birth of a child. Under the current rules, dads in
the UK get two weeks off work around the time their child's
born, while mothers receive up to a year. By institutionalizing the idea
that women should be the ones child-rearing and men should be the ones
bread-winning, Clegg quite fairly deemed that "these rules patronize
women and marginalize men."

In a first move to address the discrepancy, he announced that as of
April 2011 changes to parental leave will allow fathers to take over the
remainder of a woman's maternity leave after six months. If a family
decides that mom should return to work after seven months, dad can take
leave for the remaining five. If mom needs the whole year off, it's
still hers for the taking. The new rules are meant to offer more choice,
with room for families to decide the best course of action.

What's more, Clegg announced that the government was in
"consultation" of further changes for 2015. New rules could include men
being able to take over leave as early as six weeks after the baby was
born and parents being able to alternate their time off in "chunks,"
rather than in long stretches. There is also talk of an incentive policy
being implemented for fathers--a "use it or lose it" block of leave to
be taken within a set time after the baby arrives--to encourage fathers
to use the time off and overcome the stigma that still lingers over
paternal leave.

And this announcement seems to have thrown small business owners into a panic.

David Frost, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce
adamantly criticized the changes. "This is too difficult for small
businesses to deal with, and could prevent them from taking on staff at a
time when they are expected to create wealth and jobs," he said. "The
rigid rules Nick Clegg refers to and plans to abolish are the very same
rules needed by business to help them plan."

Daniel Barnett writes in the Guardian
that the changes "will have a chilling impact on recruitment practice.
Many employers shy away from hiring women of childbearing age. Clegg's
proposals might see employers becoming wary of recruiting anyone in
their 20s or 30s."

Apart from the ludicrousness of the suggestion that business owners would actually avoid hiring anyone who
might possibly become a parent (which would mean all men as they can
father children well into their 60s), the implication that it's
preferable for employers to discriminate against women alone, rather
than men and women, is exactly the sort of attitude that
changes such as Clegg's are meant to remedy. (via Guardian)